15 December 1934

62 goals in 19 games but not top of the league!

It was approaching a year since Chapman had died (January 6) and Arsenal as a team had marched on as if nothing had happened.  With Joe Shaw having taken over as manager upon the great man’s death, Arsenal had won the league for the second time in succession. 

From all that we can make out Joe was perfectly happy then to return to being in charge of the Football Combination team and so for 1934/5 Arsenal had their third manager in three years: George Allison, the first editor of the club’s programme (in 1910 – thus a colleague of Norris), famous journalist, famous radio broadcaster, club director, now the manager.

The first 11 games of George’s reign had been a triumph.  Just one defeat, 5-1 thrashings of Tottenham and Birmingham, and a staggering 8-1 win over Liverpool.

The crowds were amazing too, with 68,145 turning up for the victory over Man City at Highbury on October 13, and 70,544 seeing the Tottenham game on October 20.

Between October 27 and November 17 there had been a wobble with two defeats, a win and a draw but normal service was resumed on November 24 with a 5-2 win over Chelsea, followed on December 1 with a 7-0 win over Wolverhampton.    

In those two games Drake had scored eight of the twelve goals, and more were expected on December 8 – but the result was Huddersfield 1 Arsenal 1 – the Arsenal contribution coming from an own goal.  Drake, James and Bastin were all there – they just couldn’t score. The newspapers gleefully declared the bubble had burst.

And so to December 15 1934 it was Arsenal v Leicester.   Arsenal had scored 39 at home and let in eight in nine games at home thus far.   Away Leicester had scored 10 and let in 20.

Fun and games were expected and yet only 23,689 turned up – most of the gentlemen fans had seemingly been dragged off to the shops for Christmas shopping. (It seems there was no Amazon in those days, and what with men generally working a five and a half day week, and the shops all being shut on Sunday, the last two Saturday afternoons before Christmas was when it all happened.

Those attending however were rewarded with this table in the programme.  After the Huddersfield game Arsenal sat second, and Leicester at the foot of the table. (GA is goal average – goals scored divided by goals conceded. And of course two points for a win, one for a draw).

Although one point behind Sunderland, Arsenal had scored more goals and had a better goal average than anyone else in the League.  Arsenal were scoring exactly three goals a game on average.

And on this day Arsenal won 8-0 for the first, but not the last time, that season (they also beat Middlesbrough at home by the same score on April 19 1935).   Drake got three, Hulme three and Bastin two.

After the game the table stayed the same, with Sunderland also winning.

And yet it must seem now a bit strange that with all these sensational score lines Arsenal were not top of the league.   Why was that?

The answer comes with the away record.  Overall Arsenal had won 10 drawn six and lost three by the end of the Leicester game, but away from home the record was won one, drawn six and lost two! Indeed in the game after that on December 22 matters got worse because the score was Derby 3 Arsenal 1.   In the next away game on December 26 it was Preston 2 Arsenal 1.

Finally however matters turned around on the eve of the first anniversary of Chapman’s death with Liverpool 0 Arsenal 2. 

By the end of the season Arsenal’s away record was a more respectable won 8 drawn 8 lost 5 including a rather wonderful sounding Tottenham 0 Arsenal 6 on 6 March 1935.   We won the league by four points having scored 115 goals of which 74 were at home – the third league title in a row, with each won under a different manager.

But that away record…  I wonder if as Christmas approached in 1934 there were fans on the terraces , and journalists scribbling in Fleet Street, all saying of Allison, “he’ll have to go” and noting just how no team could ever win the league with that sort of away record.

Yet we did it – for the third time running with three different managers.

14 December 1889

This was the day when Arsenal were ordered to play two “first team” games at once by two competing footballing associations.  Neither would give way, and so ultimately Arsenal obliged, using all their (not very extensive) reserve team selection, and won both.

The problem arose because Arsenal in the 19^th century were members of two regional Football Associations.  The London FA and the Kent FA.

This came about because there was nothing to stop the club joining more than one association, and there was a logic in the matter since  the Plumstead ground although technically in Kent was also in London.

And so Arsenal were entered into the Kent Senior Cup and the London Senior Cup, and on this day were drawn to play Martins Athletic at home (winning 6-0) in the London Senior Cup and Gravesend (whom they beat 7-2 away) in the KSC on the same day.  

By and large it was the London Senior Cup game that got the reserves, while the Kent game got the first team.

Arsenal entered The Kent Senior Cup for the first time the previous season with their first ever game being on 10 November 1888.  The following round was played on 29 December 1888 wherein Arsenal beat Iona 5-1, and then on 9 February 1889 we drew 3-3 away to Gravesend.  

However in this game Arsenal were disqualified for refusing to play extra time, and thus they went out of the competition.  The home team had somehow turned up late, but been allowed to participate by the referee, and Arsenal are reported to have been worried by injuries in extra time in the fading light.  Their view seems to have been that Gravesend should have been disqualified for lateness, but the Kent FA saw it a different way.

Moving on to the 1889/90 season and the two games on one day, on 9 November 1889 Arsenal had beaten West Kent at home 10-1 before the double match day on 14 December 1889.

On 15 February 1890 Arsenal played Chatham away and won 5-0 before playing Thanet Wanderers and winning 3-0 in the final on 23 March 1890.

The competition however has another twist in its records, because the 1893/4 competition was won by Royal Ordnance Factories – and this was Woolwich Arsenal’s last game in the competition – although it must be said that pull-out was voluntary not forced.

I mention that because for many years various histories of Arsenal reported that when Arsenal became a professional club in 1893 they were ejected from the two FAs and so could not play in fixtures against local teams.

It takes but a moment to see that this was not true, by looking at the fixture lists.  Virtually all the clubs Arsenal played in the 1892/3 season as an amateur team, were played again in 1893/4.  But the story that Arsenal were not allowed to play these club was spread and repeated without anyone doing the basic checks.

As for Royal Ordnance Factories, well in Arsenal’s history they are notorious.  In 1892/3 a grouping within Arsenal tried to prevent the move of the club to professional status, and tried every trick to stop this.   The owner of Arsenal’s ground massively increased the rent to insane levels, and the breakaway “amateur status” group tried to bribe the owner of the new ground Arsenal found not to lease it to the club.  In the end the rebels left Woolwich Arsenal FC and formed Royal Ordanance Factories FC, playing in Arsenal’s ground.  Arsenal moved across the road and quickly built what became “The Manor Ground” where they remained until upping sticks and moving to Highbury in 1913.

13 December 2012

On 13 December 2012 Sky Sports News carried an interview with Stewart Robson in which he described Arsene Wenger as “a dictator” adding, “Tactically Arsenal are all over the place at times, they’re under-prepared defensively, and if you have that you’re always going to lose several football games in a season and not win trophies.” 

In fact Arsenal won the FA Cup three times in the next five years and ended up between second and fourth in this and the subsequent four seasons. Although that was considered to be not enough by some fans at the time, who would often cite the mantra “Fourth is not a trophy” is was subsequently shown that reaching the top four each season was not as easy as the fans thought.

There is of course a long history of ex-Arsenal players who come back as media commentators and who are highly critical of their former employers.  However there can surely be none who has taken this criticism of the hand that formally fed, as far as Stewart Robson.

Stewart Robson was born 6 November 1964 and played 150 league games for Arsenal scoring 16 goals.  He also played 126 games for West Ham and Coventry, and managed Southend for three matches, winning one and losing two of his games.

Robson was born in Essex, educated in minor public schools and joined Arsenal as a schoolboy.  He made his début on 5 December 1981 aged 17, against West Ham and was named Player of the Year in 1984 by Arsenal supporters, but following a series of injuries and the change of management to George Graham he was moved on and left in January 1987 after a grand total of 186 games and 21 goals.

His anti-Arsenal comments were not heard at first – and indeed it is fair to say that when they started they were utterly focussed on Mr Wenger.   These anti-Wenger complaints reached an outrageous peak in 2012 and in August of that year he was sacked by Arsenal from his then job of co-commentating on Arsenal TV.  Quite how he ever imagined he could get away with it on Arsenal TV is unknown.  By the time he left many fans were demanding he be removed.

But Bob Wilson certainly did his bit as on 26 February 2013 he was quoted on Goal.com as calling Stewart Robson “bitter” over his criticism of Mr Wenger after Robson stated on the BBC, “I hope it [Wenger’s exit] is sooner rather than later because I certainly won’t miss him because Arsenal have been going down the wrong road for quite some while.”

With Robson then saying that Mr Wenger didn’t have “an actual game plan” Bob Wilson said,  “This is a guy who worked for this club up to a few weeks ago, doing the pre-match stuff on the opposition, who then went to a newspaper, without naming anybody who had given him the so-called facts about him [Arsene Wenger] being a dictator,” Wilson told the BBC.   “Today, he’s been on every half hour on Radio Five Live, and this is a guy who obviously is a bitter guy because he’s no longer got a role or any employment here.”

But although Bob was right about him being bitter over getting the sack, Robson had been using Arsenal TV to promote his wild theories for some time before his sacking.  Of course there is such a thing as journalistic integrity and honesty to your views, but that normally implies resigning from an institution that supports the man you think is an idiot, not being paid by it.  Robson promoting Anti-Wenger propaganda at Arsenal TV was rather like me working for the right wing Daily Mail and putting forward a vision of socialism.

But of course Robson didn’t only use Arsenal TV to put forward his views.  On Sky Sports News on December 13 2012 he had described Arsene Wenger as “a dictator” whose “time at Arsenal should have ended years ago.”   He said that Mr Wenger “has a lack of tactical nous which is costing points every year.”

Robson, citing no evidence at all through his rant, told Sky Sports News that the manager had a reluctance to listen to his backroom staff.  Referring to the defeat on penalties by Bradford, Robson added, “It was a poor performance, but one I’m not surprised about. Time and time again Arsenal don’t earn the right to play, and tactically (Bradford boss) Phil Parkinson showed he’s a better coach than Arsene Wenger.”

“I’m more embarrassed with the way Arsene Wenger conducts himself these days. He doesn’t do any tactical stuff on the side of the field, they tell me he doesn’t do too much work on the defensive side in training, yet he’ll have a rant at everybody else.

“There’s backroom staff that will challenge his decisions – Steve Bould, Neil Banfield, Terry Burton – but they can’t challenge him because he’s a dictator in many ways.

“Why isn’t Steve Bould doing more coaching? Because – time and time again – I don’t think Arsene Wenger sees the danger. When the team are making mistakes he doesn’t rectify them, and the reason he doesn’t rectify them is he doesn’t know what the mistakes are.

“In my view it was time up three or four years ago. The fans have stuck by him, they always say ‘in Arsene we trust’, that can’t be the case any more.  Tactically Arsenal are all over the place at times, they’re under-prepared defensively, and if you have that you’re always going to lose several football games in a season and not win trophies.”

Now such a wild rant would probably be enough for most people, but Robson, knowing he would get wall to wall coverage by the anti-Wenger media continued into the summer of 2013.    The Independent, for example, on Friday 07 June 2013 reported that Robson was now suggesting that, “Manager Arsene Wenger should not be trusted to spend Arsenal’s summer transfer budget.”

Speaking to Talksport on the same day, Robson said, “I am not expecting any marquee signings at Arsenal. There is a lot of talk about it, but I don’t know if I would trust Arsene Wenger with that money.  Over the last few years some of the players that he has said were going to be world class haven’t ended up like that – people like Philippe Senderos, Denilson, Marouane Chamakh, Armand Traore, Sebastien Squillaci, Nicklas Bendtner, Carlos Vela, Emmanuel Eboue, Park Chu-young, Lukasz Fabianski, Gervinho and Andre Santos.”   [This is of course nonsense.  There is no record of Wenger calling these players ‘world class’, and one could put together a list of players who didn’t become world class but who signed as backups for Premier League teams.

“Over the last two seasons they have spent some money on Olivier Giroud, Lukas Podolski, Mikel Arteta, Nacho Monreal, Per Mertesacker and Andre Santos. They haven’t been top-class players.

“Arsene Wenger doesn’t appear to want to sign the top-class players, or what other people would describe as top-class players.   He goes out and says: ‘I can buy you cheaper players for a better price who are going to be world-class players in the future’, but that hasn’t been the case in the last few years. Some of the players who he has bought have regressed under him like Andrey Arshavin and Thomas Vermaelen. Nacho Monreal hasn’t been a good signing…” (Just to be clear and to give one example, Vermaelen was bought for £5m and sold for £15m to Barcelona).”

So bizarre and outrageous were these statements that it was probably only because of their rank stupidity that no one actually bothered to sue Robson for slander.

Of course by then Robson was yesterday’s goods.  I think we might also add by way of possible explanation the disappointment Robson had, not just by not quite making it as a top player at Arsenal because of his injuries, but also not really developing his management career after a brief sojourn at Wimbledon and even briefer time at Southend.  He was also technical director of Rushden and Diamonds before their collapse and from then on confined himself to “commentary”. And indeed maybe he became so bitter because of his failure to get football work after he stopped playing.

He was then heard working on other TV channels and doing some overseas commentaries, where his wild rants could find a new audience.  There appears to be an awareness that even those media outlets who were desperate for anti-Arsenal and anti-Wenger quotes realised that Robson was hardly a viable spokesman for the Wenger-Out lobby and thus his chance to rant in the UK has been diminished as most broadcasters and serious newspapers had less and less to do with him.

Robson’s case is one of the saddest of all for an ex-player.  He could have worked for the club and done some other broadcasting too, but he was left with the unique selling point for his “talents” of having been “sacked by Wenger for speaking out”. 

But it wasn’t the speaking out that did him, it was the rubbish that he spoke without any supporting evidence.

In fact Arsenal showed enormous forbearance in putting up with him for as long as they did.  Had he been an employee of mine he would have gone the moment he said his first anti-Wenger comment on Arsenal TV.  But maybe that’s just me and my old fashioned values.  I don’t think you criticise your boss in public and keep your job.

12 December 1946

Ronnie Rooke signed for Arsenal aged 35 from Fulham on this day.  Before signing for Arsenal he had never played in the top division of English football and remains the oldest player to make his Arsenal first team debut.  David Nelson and Cyril Grant went to Fulham as part of the deal.

Arsenal’s record during the 1930s was something to behold: League Champions five times, Runners Up once, Cup Winners twice, losing finalists once.  The question was asked more than once, could anything stop Arsenal?

The answer of course was yes, but it wasn’t a football club.  It was the second world war.

Unlike the first world war where, in expectation that it would be a small thing which the professional army would have sorted out by Christmas, the league programme for 1914/15 was continued and completed. But the moment war was declared in 1939 the League programme was stopped, and a short while later the first of a series of wartime leagues was set up.

During the second world war Arsenal’s ground was taken over by the military and the matches were played at White Hart Lane.  George Allison, who had been thinking of retiring from management even before war was declared, battled on through the war and (again against his wishes) was persuaded to manage the club for the first post-war season 1946/7 while the club waited for Tom Whittaker to return.

As a result the 1946/7 season was a disaster and it soon became clear that even finishing in the top half of the league looked unlikely. 

Arsenal lost the opening game away to Wolverhampton 6-1.  Our goal was scored by Reg Lewis.  The second match gave no relief to Arsenal fans – a 3-1 home defeat to Blackburn.  Reg Lewis scored.  The third match was a 2-2 draw at home to Sunderland in front of 60,000 people.  Reg Lewis got both.  In the fourth match we lost away from home to Everton 2-3.  Reg Lewis scored.  Twice.

You’ll have started to see a pattern here.  Arsenal, despite clearly being way off the form that had led the club to dominate the 30s had in their midst a scoring machine called Reg Lewis.

Although many players were unable to continue after the war, Reg was still only 26, and he came back to professional football with a bang.  Arsenal however never recovered from their poor start in the first post-war season, but in the second half of the campaign, Reg found he had a fellow goalscorer in the team: Ronnie Rooke.  He took up Reg’s position on December 14 1946, with Reg injured, and scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Charlton.

By the end of the season the power of the Arsenal team was clear for alongside Reg’s 29 goals from 28 games Ronnie had 21 goals from 24 games.

The following season Reg and Ronnie scored 47 goals between them as Arsenal won the First Division title in 1947/48 with Tom Whittaker now enthroned in his first year as manager.

So where, one may ask, did Ronnie Rooke come from?

In answering this question, we have perhaps the strangest part of the story of all.  Ronnie played for Fulham before the war, but was 35 years old when football resumed in 1946.  And yet despite this was still signed by George Allison.  Allison’s scouting team had pretty much gone, or lost touch with who was available where, and so he was ready to take on anyone at least to get him through to the end of the season.  35 year old Ronnie was the man he found.

Amazingly the plan worked and not only did Ronnie get his 21 goals in 24 League matches in his first season, in the championship season of 1947-8 he scored an unbelievable 33 League goals.

Ronnie was born on 7 December 1911 in Guildford and started out with Crystal Palace in the Third Division South, playing 18 games and scoring four times.

Then he went on to Fulham in the Second Division in November 1936 scoring   57 goals in 87 league games, including all the goals in Fulham 6 Bury 0 in the FA Cup.

During the war he was in the RAF and upon being demobbed he joined Arsenal. Perhaps even more amazingly Ronnie kept going for one more year, getting 14 goals in 1948-9 before moving to Crystal Palace, as player-manager on 20 June 1949. He scored 70 goals in just 94 matches for Arsenal.

After Palace Ronnie went on to be player manager of Bedford Town in November 1950, and later worked as a porter at Luton Airport, dying of lung cancer in 1985 aged 73.

Persuading George Allison to stay with Arsenal for the first post-war season, while they waited for Tom Whittaker to be available to take up the post, was not the best reward for a man who had served Arsenal since 1910 (when he took over as programme writer and editor when Henry Norris moved to the club).  But in the longer run it paid off. 

It is to Allison, and his idea of playing Ronnie Rooke and Reg Lewis together in 1946/7 that we owe the 1947/8 Championship.

11 December 1881 and 11 December 1886

Two events for the price of one: 11 December 1881 Thomas Tindal Fitchie was born.  Five years later on the same day, Arsenal’s first and only game under the name Dial Square was played, with Dial Square beating Eastern Wanderers 6-0. 

So let’s start with the latter and then take ourselves on to Mr Fitchie to see the connecton.

When the Arsenal History Society was formed there was no evidence we could immediately lay our hands on to show this game actually took place, but our research eventually found the relevant missing newspaper evidence, including the only contemporary report of the match – something which had been lost for 100 years.  After this match against Eastern Wanderers, membership of the Dial Square club was expanded from just those who worked in the Dial Square factory to everyone working for the Woolwich Arsenal.

I took the view (before the discovery of the newspaper report) that the game against Eastern Wanderers couldn’t have taken place as reported, providing evidence about the distance the workers would have had to travel after the morning shift in Woolwich, the lack of transport across the Thames and so on.  My point being they wouldn’t have been able to get there in time. But others in the history society were made of sounder stuff, they found a public ferry that was available on that day, and then beat my negative approach into the ground by finding that report of the score in a local newspaper.  It did happen.  Dial Square FC did play its one and only match on this day in 1886, before mutating into Royal Arsenal FC.

But then what of Thomas Tindal Fitchie who celebrated his fifth birthday on the day of the match?  How does he fit into the story? And indeed why?

TT Fitchie was in fact the only man ever to be signed by Arsenal five times.  He became a travelling salesman with Jacques & Co, a sports goods and games manufacturer. Arsenal encouraged his football career as it allowed them access to the clubs and the players who were his team-mates. He was what we might call a travelling player-scout. We get a hint of his life through a list of the clubs he turned out for

• West Norwood
• Woolwich Arsenal
• Tottenham Hotspur
• Woolwich Arsenal
• London Caledonians
• Woolwich Arsenal
• Queen’s Park
• Fulhm
• London Caledonans
• Woolwich Arsenal
• Queen’s Park
• Norwich City
• Queen’s Park
• Brighton and Hove Albion
• Woolwich Arsenal
• Glossop
• Fulham

He had the nickname “Prince of Dribblers”, which makes him a very early Stanley Matthews, as well as obviously being a good businessman.

Fitchie came to Woolwich Arsenal in November 1901, played three games and scored three goals.  He went off on his salesman career, and came back in 1903 for an away game at Lincoln, and then was away again until he played away against Notts County in December 1904 when with Arsenal in the first division, he scored a hat trick – quite a return!  In his run he scored six in nine games, before he was off again.

He then managed to curtail his business operations long enough to play for Scotland against Wales in March 1905 – the first of four caps (he scored once).

In 1905/6 he scored nine goals in 22 games in the league and two goals in five FA Cup games (he played in the semi-final against Newcastle) and was top scorer.

But still they couldn’t hold him at the club, and his wandering continued.  He didn’t play in the next two seasons, but played 21 times in 1908/9 and scored 9 times. In all, he played 63 times for Arsenal and scored 30 goals.

But this was a remarkable man – not content with all he had done so far he joined The Pilgrims, a British side that toured the USA in 1909 as a freelance club demonstrating the game.

By 1909, football in the United States was flourishing, with four leagues in the New York/New Jersey area active, plus two state cup competitions.  A similar story of developing interest was to be found across the US from New England to the south west.  Slowly semi-professionalism was being introduced and when the Eastern Soccer League was founded in 1910 it seemed that football would soon play a major part in American sporting life.

As for the Prince of Dribblers he concluded his career in 1912. So what else do we know of him.

The first thing we have to recognise is that Thomas Tindal Fitchie was an amateur player – although he was undoubtedly paid for his trip to the US (where he probably set up some new business venture).

Other than that, at first we didn’t know, so I did the obvious thing.  I wrote an article on the Arsenal History Society site appealing for more information, and what should I get back, but an email from Andrew Fitchie saying…

“TT Fitchie was my granddad and I have carried out a fair amount of research into his playing days. I still have his international caps, his jersey badges (the international kit was owned by Lord Roseberry in those days so no swoping shirts!!). Sadly his four medals were stolen from my Dad. I have original Glasgow newspaper reports for pretty much all of his games for Queens Park and the four internationals.

“As a young boy, I heard a great deal about his time as an amateur when professionalism was beginning in earnest. This fuelled my love of football.

“TT was a travelling salesman with Jacques & Co a sports goods and games manufacturer. They encouraged his football career as it allowed them access to the clubs and the players who were his team mates – a bit like sponsorship, I suppose. As an amateur, he was not permitted to be paid. if he scored, he would often find a guinea in his boots after showering.

“In 1909, his great friend Vivian Woodward (Spurs and England and also an amateur), asked him to go on the Pilgrims tour to the States. They sailed on the Cunard Line – SS Mauritania – and I have his US immigration note from the Ellis Island landing in New York in autumn 1909. There was a lot of media interest since this was in fact the second Pilgrim’s tour and senior FA reps were also with the team. The Pilgrims handed out some heavy thrashings but also occasionally met their match because some of the teams were Scots and Irish immigrants (miners )who knew how to play.

“TT broke his ankle badly mid-tour and in those days it was touch and go if he would play again. He did, as you say in your summary of his career. In 1912 he got married – so that probably stopped the wanderings!! He served in France with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders in the Great War and, like many soldiers, contracted a lung disorder from which he eventually died in 1947.

“During the first season he was capped for Scotland he was playing for Queens Park against Hearts at Tynecastle. Against him was Charlie Thompson, centre half, an established internationalist. They were good pals but Charlie had joked that TT should not be playing inside left because he was not naturally left footed. TT proceeded to nutmeg big Charlie twice in a row in front of the home crowd.

“Incidentally the Arsenal 08/09 team photo season has TT as an insert – so clearly he was hard to track down!!

“I just wish I had met him.”

And that is how history works.  Well, it does sometimes. We do some research, and then the person who really knows what’s what in the story comes in and helps us out.

10 December 1908

From The Courier, Plumstead, Thursday, December 10, 1908 (page 6)…

“Greenaway, the young Coatbridge forward, has nearly set the grass on fire at Woolwich Arsenal, where he would seem in peril of being spoiled by praise. He was one of Manager Morrell’s discoveries, and cost the Arsenal next to nothing. Greenaway, being a modest lad, wears the same-sized hat as when he went to Plumstead.”

David Greenaway was a Scottish player who played as an outside right.  Between 1908 and 1920 played 161 league games and scored 13 goals with Arsenal – and so he was a member of the 1910 squad when Arsenal were rescued from collapse by Henry Norris, and who carried on and played in north London.

He came in as the number 7 for the second game of the 1908-9 season (Notts county away, lost 1-2, crowd 13,000) and then became a fixture, playing 36 league games four FA Cup games and scoring three goals all in the league.  (The web site Perfect People has David playing in the first game of the season – that’s not right.  The first match was September 2, three days earlier, against Everton.  We lost 0-4 – which is quite possibly a reason why Greenaway came into the team immediately after.)

He was born in Coatdyke, Lanarkshire in 1889, and played junior football with Shettleston.   Shettleston, from the East End of Glasgow were at least until recently still playing at Greenfield Park in the West Region of the Scottish Junior Football Association.

So, at the age of 19 he came south after just playing junior football – which suggests he actually came to Woolwich in order to find work at the armaments factory, and then managed to get into the Arsenal team.   He obviously was a decent player because he really did go straight into the first team – although the manager had used three different number 7s during the previous season and the stats show that none of them (W Garbutt, HG Lee, J Mordue) had the manager’s full confidence.

We can also notice that in the summer that he joined, Arsenal changed managers, with Phil Kelso going and George Morrell coming in.  By then the financials were in decline, so at 19 Greenaway might not just have been better than last season’s players, he might well have been cheaper.

However although he made the move to Highbury, after Jock Rutherford signed in November 1913 from Newcastle, Greenaway was dropped.  He played eight times in 1913/14 and six the following season.

He was still young enough to fight in the war and served his country with the Royal Field Artillery.  He returned to Highbury for the first post-war season (1919-20) but only played three games that year.  He didn’t play at all the following year, and left the club.

There’s no details of where David Greenaway went after that, nor have I found details of when he passed away.  He seems to be one of those players we have simply lost in the mists of time – or more accurately moved to another part of  the country and had no further connection with football.

9 December 1973

9 December 1973: probably the first ever mention of an Arsenal back four who were drilled to move forward and back together to catch the opposition offside.

On 8 December Arsenal played Derby County in a mid-week game with a 2.15pm kick off. It was Arsenal’s third consecutive draw and their sixth in an unbeaten in the league – it ended Derby County 1 Arsenal 1.  The crowd was 25,161, the goal for Arsenal was an own goal by Derby.

But with both Derby and Arsenal sadly remembering recent past glories as they sank into mid-table gloom such talk as there was after the weekend’s action was of a match at Birmingham which ended in a near riot, with two players being carried off the pitch as a result.  The press however had largely got fed up with football, and most photographers seemed to be employed in taking pictures of cars queuing to get petrol.  

As for Arsenal this was a game where such opportunities that there were (and there  were not many) were missed, leaving an own goal (in which Newton, trying to intercept a Radford-Ball exchange merely managed to scoop the ball past his own keeper) and a goal from a Derby corner headed in by McFarland as the only highlights.

Except there was one post-match incident the following day.  For the first time, as far as I know, a commentator (Alan Road of the Observer) writing on 9 December 1973, noted that highly drilled precision of Arsenal’s back four, looking, he said, “like guardsmen,” as they “stepped up smartly” to catch Derby off-side.   George Graham had moved on at the end of last year, but it would be nice to think that he noted this development in an old exercise book, ready to be considered again should he ever move into management….

The reason for the smallness of the gathering was easy to see – the match was played on a Tuesday, kick off 2.15pm. Because of the government restrictions on the use of electricity no floodlighting was allowed for football matches. Both clubs appealed for the match to be played later in the season but for reasons that never became apparent the league said no in that imperious manner that it and the FA have so often adopted across the centuries.  

Matters were made gloomier by the news that Arsenal had been fined £2000 for making illegal approaches to Phil Parkes and Gerry Francis of QPR.  It is an issue that is hardly mentioned in history books now, and yet it showed something was seriously wrong at the club.  This was Arsenal, after all, the club that prided itself on doing things properly, managed by a man who constantly spoke against any changes from the old ways of doing things, and who wanted to run the club as a military camp.

The smallness of the crowd got through to the players – as was to be expected given that much of the game was played in silence.  The pace was slow, and when Charlie George (yet again) went off injured after 17 minutes, having already scored, much of what sparkle there was, disappeared.  Just before the interval Parkin tried a shot, it went wayward but Dougan moved in and headed home.  

Nine minutes into the second half Hornsby, acting as if Armstrong was his mentor, ran through, and took a shot. McAlle got in the way and it went into the net.  On 67 minutes an attack from Wolverhampton was not cleared and after a considerable amount of to and fro Richards headed in. With no away support in the ground, the silence on the terracing was total.

Who could have imagined that this passing comment about Arsenal’s back four could have become such a theme of journalists in the years to come.

8 December 2012

Between 20 October 2012 and 1 December 2012 Arsenal played eight games of which they won two – an astonishing 5-2 win over Tottenham and a 1-0 win over QPR.

They lost three (to Norwich, Manchester United and Swansea) and drew with Fulham, Aston Villa and Everton.

Ahead of the game on 8 December Arsenal lay 10^th in the league, not quite as low as this season, but still fairly low in the table; 15 points off Manchester United at the top and five points behind Tottenham H who were in the coveted fourth spot.  Arsenal were one place and two points above Liverpool.

The game on 8 December was against West Bromwich Albion who were surprisingly up in 5^th.  Arsenal won 2-0 with both goals coming as penalties from Arteta.  Each time he used exactly the same tactic lobbing the ball gently straight to the middle of the goal as the keeper dived to one side.

At this point Arsenal then went on a four match unbeaten run in the first three of which they scored 13 goals.  There were a couple of defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea but all told the rest of the results in the league were won 15, drawn 4, lost 3.

The run was concluded by eight wins and two draws, giving us fourth place and pushing Tottenham out of the Champions League spot they so wanted.  We also ended up third highest scorers in the league with 72 goals.

Which perhaps goes to show that where club sits in early December is not necessarily where the club will end up at the end of the season.

It is also interesting that just eight years ago the top nine of the Premier League included two clubs that are no longer even in the Premier League.  Times change.

7 December 1940

On 7 December 1940: Jack Lambert, then Arsenal’s reserve coach, died in car accident aged 38.  He had played 143 league games for Arsenal and scored an amazing 98 league goals making him the most prolific goal scorer who played over 100 games, in Arsenal’s entire history.

And yet Jack Lambert was an enigmatic player both in terms of what we know about him, and in terms of his own personality.

He played local football for Greasborough and Methley Perseverance, before being rejected by The Wednesday after a trial run, then played non-league with Rotherham County and  Leeds, and finally managing to get a run with Rotherham United in the 3rd Division North, where in getting 13 goals in 44 games he looked as if he had found his level.

There are then two rival stories as to what happened next.  One says that Leslie Knighton, paid  £2,000 for him in January 1925.  The other is that Herbert Chapman had seen him while managing Huddersfield, and so, on moving to Arsenal, he signed him £2000 in the summer of 1926.

If Knighton did sign him in 1925 then that blows another hole in the story of Sir Henry Norris not allowing Knighton to buy any player costing more than £1200.  And it seems odd that a player bought with a decent transfer fee that would have stretched Norris’ patience, should not play for the first team in 1924/5 when Arsenal were struggling, and eventually ended the season one place above relegation.  Surely, having paid that money, Knighton would have risked him for just one game at least.

Likewise it is odd that Chapman did not even try the man out for a single game in 1925/6.   So it seems more likely that Chapman did indeed buy him in the summer of 1926.

Whatever the truth of the story, his record at Arsenal is one of the most interesting that you will ever see.  The following figures relate to league matches only.

If Knighton bought the man, it is amazing that from such a low start Chapman still persevered with the player.  Another story (without any backup evidence sadly) that circulates is that Jack was booed by some parts of the crowd and that Chapman was so annoyed that he wanted the “boo-boys” as they were called then, ejected from the ground.  

Indeed the Jack Lambert issue is the first incident of Chapman’s side being booed by supposed Arsenal fans – something that reached a crescendo after the cup defeat to Walsall.

But this early problem for Jack was forgotten by many (although I think not by Jack) when he broke the club goal record with his 38 goals in 34 league games, including seven hat tricks, as Arsenal won the league for the first time.  Those who had booed him presumably changed their minds and claimed always to have liked Jack.

His final appearance was in September 1933 and in October he moved on to Fulham where he played for two seasons before retiring as a player aged 35.

He then moved on to become coach of Margate, who at the time were run as a nursery club for Arsenal, before moving back to Arsenal in 1938 as coach of the reserve side (according to one report) or the youth team (according to another).  Tragically he died that year killed in a car accident in Enfield (although yet again there is a disagreement as an alternative source says that the accident was not until 1940).

So why did Chapman stay with a player who had had no previous record of success in the top division, and who had been rejected by other clubs?  One answer probably comes from the fact that at the time the reserves played in a regular Saturday afternoon league which unlike today was not a league for young players.   Arsenal regularly won the Football Combination in the 1930s, and it was here that Jack finally showed signs of the standard that Chapman had known him capable of.

There is another point: Jack Lambert’s first real goal scoring return came in 1929/30 (18 goals in 20 games) when Arsenal came 14th in the league, which means that his goalscoring in such a modest team no mean feat.  But that was also the year Arsenal won the cup, and Jack played in all 8 FA Cup matches, scoring five goals, including one in the final.

And we must remember who he was playing alongside during the peak of his career: Cliff Bastin, Alex James, David Jack and Joe Hulme.  Not a bad set of players.

So why did people turn on him.   Reports suggest that he was incredibly nervous as a player, saying on one occasion, “Even the thought of setting foot on the pitch, fills me with dread.”

He is of course now forgotten by most Arsenal fans, but his name and his sadly short life should be remembered – and it would be good if we could get the variant reports of his life resolved.

6 December 1997

On this day Arsenal beat Newcastle U away 1-0.  Nothing much in that you might say, but it was part of a sequence in which the club won only two out of eight. 

Must have been a pretty shocking season you might now be saying.   We yes except we still went on to win the Double for the second time.  Yes, this was Game 17 of the second double.  Here are the results up to this day in 1997, and then the one after. 

• 18 Oct, Crystal Palace, Away.  Drew, 0-0
• 26 Oct, Aston Villa, Home.  Drew, 0-0
• 1 Nov, Derby County, Away.  Lost, 0-3
• 9 Nov, Manchester U, Home.  Won 3-2
• 22 Nov, Sheffield W, Away.  Lost 0-2
• 30 Nov, Liverpool, Home.  Lost 0-1
• 6 Dec, Newcastle U, Away.  Won 1-0
• 13 Dec.  Blackburn R, Home.  Lost 1-3

Just in case that stretch of results is a bit numbing here’s the summary.  We won 2, drew 2, lost four.

You might remember what happened thereafter.   But in case not, here’s another hint.  In the third round of the FA Cup we got Port Vale.  Our full first team was playing, and we drew 0-0.  In the replay we went through on penalties after extra time.

But we still went on to win the double.

That season we played 38, won 23, lost six and drew nine.  We won the league by five points.  An in case you don’t believe me about the Port Vale thing, our team in the 0-0 draw was Seaman, Grimandi, Keown, Bould, Winterburn, Parlour, Vieira, Petit, Overmars, Anelka, Bergkamp.

Shall I just do a bit of that again?  Parlour, Vieira, Petit, Overmars, Anelka, Bergkamp.

I have to admit that team took me by surprise.  I idolised those players, their genius, their ability, the joys they gave me, their everything.  And they drew 0-0 with Port Vale, and just managed to win the replay on penalties.

Now there is a point in this.  Bad times and good times are mixed.  But we tend to remember one without the other.

In fact if we go back to 2000-1 Man United won the league losing 8 games.  Go back to the 1950s and 1960s (significant as the last era in which Tottenham won the league), losing up to 11 games a season was not unusual for the winning team.

My point here is twofold.  First is that just because George Graham’s 1990/1 team won the league losing just one game in a season, and Mr Wenger’s final championship came with no defeats at all, it doesn’t mean that it is always like this.  Indeed after the one-defeat season (“you’ll never see that again” said the media “that was a fluke”), we went back to the norm.

For a while.

The other is that to claim that one is a long term supporter, and that this is the worst team ever, is either to suffer from terminal amnesia or to be a complete moron.

Consider if you will, 1994/5 in which we played 42, won 13, drew 12 and lost 17, letting in 49 goals en route to coming 12th.  A fairly awful defence you might say.  Yup – a team that regularly lined up at the back as Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Bould, Keown.

Now I will be fair and say that Adams was injured for some of the season although still managed 20+ games – and those fellows Bould and Keown could play a bit too.

And we came 12th.

The following season we came fifth, under Rioch, and that was another dreadful year – not because we clawed our way up the league but rather because of the style of play and the fact that players like Ian Wright were demanding a transfer. 

Oh and in case you were thinking that I am being unreasonable in my analysis I will do the FA Cup for those two years too.

1994/5 Millwall, 3rd round, lost 0-2 at home

1995/6 Sheffield United, 3rd round, lost 0-1 away after a draw at home.

My point therefore is simple – we readily forget the past, and make up all sorts of excuses and reasons to explain something we don’t like in the present.   But t can be helpful to check the facts from the past, rather than just see it through our imaginations.